I can remember being told this many times in my life: “Every photo has a great story behind it.” And they’re right. So, for this fest, I want you to find a photo, any photo, and make up a short story (or poem for all the poets out there) about it. It doesn’t have to be very long. Make it as long as you want, just as long as you tell your story. I know that many of you have other writing projects to do, so I don’t want this to take up too much of your time. Just write however much you want to. The length is up to you this time!

I decided given I have just recently taken a million photos, surely one of them could inspire me to write a short story. So here we go – the photo I chose is one I took in the British Museum – I think I was in the section on Enlightenment at the time but I went through so many exhibits it is hard to remember. Anyway, this photo just continues my thing of taking photos of feet and shoes.

However after staring at said photo for a long time and having a lot on my mind I’ve come up with many ideas and rejected them so I think maybe my part of this blog fest will be every photo inspires a thousand rejections.

Rejected – any notion of weaving greek and or roman gods into a modern setting (mostly because it’s been done and because I wasn’t really in the mood to get historical).

Rejected – statues coming to life either as discovery or as horror (mostly because its been done. In point of fact, I’ve done it before in a short story).

Rejected – a fallen civilisation being rediscovered with far reaching impact (mostly because this isn’t the start of a short story, but an entire work).

Rejected – a story told from the perspective of an abused platform (mostly because I couldn’t stop laughing long enough to figure out what an abused platform’s voice would sound like).

Agatha82said,

My first thought was “how come there’s a modern wedge sandal in the British Museum?”
My second thought was to have a short story of a cultured man who takes his latest girlfriend (a blonde who is into fashion…yeah, I know it’s a cliche) to the museum and she gushes over this shoe because it reminds me of something she saw in Sex and the City) and I don’t know, maybe she suddenly gets interested in history and they live happily ever after. Ah well, crap story but it’s all I could think of.

How about this: A horrid smell has settled over a small town and its suffering citizens cannot find the cause of it. Everyone suffers unspeakably. Finally someone discovers that the cause is this ancient (and cursed) foot.

Kids stories are always fun to read – they have all the essentials of a good story, just boiled down and laid open without any of the fancy words to hide a poor plot. Kids stories must be incredibly hard to write well.

I like the idea of telling a story of an abused platform. It seems it would be entertaining if nothing else. I wonder what I would do with this picture…there are already so many suggestions…perhaps I my main character has lost their love and the only way to win back their heart is to ask for penance by collecting the four elements of the earth, and this fossilized foot could represent earth and spirit…idk, I’m not very good at this, lol.

Shadowsaid,

Perhaps I would not have been so quick to deny any of those ideas. Often stories “done to death” can lead to some interesting variations if you just let yourself go with them. When presented with a photo, I often just let it all go and write it. I can change it later.

The photo makes me think of a broken sculpture, like something dug up from the ruins of an ancient civilization–and then I’d want to know about that civilization, the people who lived in it, and the events that led to its downfall.

Love your progression of rejected ideas, Cassandra. Story ideas. Hmmm… I like Agatha82’s idea of something in the museum itself. How about this:

A chance encounter in the British Museum. Both are confused over why there would be a wedge sandal in an exhibit on Ancient Greece.* Confusion leads to a shared sense of sardonicism leads to… something. Starting with fun dialog and seeing where it goes.